College Drama Club OK with Rape and Incest but Not Christianity
The drama instructor at Cape Fear Community College, who had previously green lighted productions featuring rape and incest, told a student he would have to “dumb down” his production’s Christian message, lest someone be offended.
Greg Piper at The College Fix has the story:
Rape And Incest OK In Drama Productions, Christianity Is Not For Community College
The Alliance Defending Freedom is representing a student whose drama club production was not allowed to be shown unless he agreed to “dumb down” its Christian message, the group said Wednesday.
In a letter last week to the drama instructor at Cape Fear Community College in North Carolina, the alliance recounted that the instructor had refused to allow a production sponsored by the drama club unless its student creator minimized the religious content so it wasn’t “obvious”:
You explained (1) that this content could anger taxpayers, prompting lawsuits; (2) that you did not want anyone to feel “offended” (although you apparently had no such concerns when the drama club sponsored productions that included rape and incest this year); and (3) that this production would violate the First Amendment if it included religious content.
The alliance then goes into Supreme Court precedent on religious speech and viewpoint discrimination, particularly a 1995 case that said the University of Virginia couldn’t withhold student activity fees from funding a publication dedicated to “evangelizing students to become Christians.”
It also called the instructor “hypocritical” for saying “several times” the Christian production could be offensive while greenlighting productions that discuss rape and incest, and rebuked his apparent claim that the Establishment Clause blocks the school from supporting a religious message.
Rape And Incest OK In Drama Productions, Christianity Is Not For Community College (The College Fix)
Comments
That doesn’t make sense. A Drama Club routinely deals with fiction and fantasy and invention. Wouldn’t the underlying beliefs of Christianity fit that description to a T?
Does that mean he Drama Club will exclude adaptations of Greek Mythology and Judaism and Islam, and other tales with phantasmagorical content too?